I like it. This will make a nice gateway building when entering the River Market on Grand. Now if we could just get that drive-up bank facility to go away, and a decent sized building constructed on that lot as well.

pash wrote:Per the developer's letter of intent [PDF], there will be 10,000 square feet of retail space. There are also 140 garage spaces for 140 units. Good to see the parking ratios finally seem to trend downward. ...

I wouldn't care if this building had 600 spots, as long as it was hidden within the walls or underground. It is great to see these lots (especially gravel lots) get filled in with these types of buildings.

If TIF or public funding helps fund any project that involves a garage, I would expect more spots than number of units with requirement to offer some free or cheap public parking. Or put another way, I have no issues with TIF that also has a public benefit, such as (and usually) free/cheap garage parking.

BTW, who owns the lot on W end of City Market, next to Minsky's. That is prime for development but also needs garage with at least same number of public parking in addition to cover whatever would go above it - preferably well hidden behind retail like most Plaza parking. I envision a fairly substantial mid-rise residential there (10-15 floors), maybe even boutique hotel/residential given on streetcar line. TIF would be appropriate to help with garage as long as same # of free/cheap public parking available. Downtown still needs to offset lost parking from infill projects in most cases as of course one streetcar line isn't going to suddenly reduce cars enough to cut parking.

Last edited by earthling on Fri Jun 12, 2015 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The 531 Grand development will feature 10,000 square feet of street-level retail, and an outdoor swimming pool on part of the parking structure's roof. The development will feature five floors of studio through two-bedroom units on top of a two-story, 140-space parking pedestal.

Have been wondering when this one would kick off, will be a nice contiguous stretch with Centropolis also now a block down. Crossroads could use a few dozen more of these to fill in surface lots (and like Centropolis), with streetfront retail where appropriate.

earthling wrote:BTW, who owns the lot on W end of City Market, next to Minsky's. That is prime for development but also needs garage with at least same number of public parking in addition to cover whatever would go above it - preferably well hidden behind retail like most Plaza parking. I envision a fairly substantial mid-rise residential there (10-15 floors), maybe even boutique hotel/residential given on streetcar line. TIF would be appropriate to help with garage as long as same # of free/cheap public parking available. Downtown still needs to offset lost parking from infill projects in most cases as of course one streetcar line isn't going to suddenly reduce cars enough to cut parking.

The City owns that lot, and the one to the south across the street. They have already put out bids on redeveloping those surface lots, but I think they are still evaluating them. I don't recall anyone being picked.

I would imagine that any lots around the City Market that get developed will have to include some extra public parking in a garage. There are a lot of people that visit the City Market from surrounding areas that arrive by car. In addition, it's an opportunity to provide shared parking for property owners nearby, and thus encourage them to develop their small surface lots with infill buildings.

mgh7676 wrote:This updated rendering of 531 Grand was posted on twitter a couple days ago. Not bad!

I like this building. It has balconies, a variety of window sizes, and different textures/colors on the facade that break up the building into parts--thus making it more visually-interesting. I also like the massing for that site. I wish we had a view of the other side though to see how it looks next to the old Muehlebach building.

Eon Blue wrote:At 7 floors, this would have to be steel or reinforced concrete construction - right? Sometimes I worry about the longevity of some of the new timber construction we're getting downtown.

It depends. There are a lot of projects around the world that are using mass timber to construct fairly tall buildings. It's still a fairly new practice, and probably won't be used in this project. However, it is more sustainable, and the fear of using mass timber in construction of larger buildings has been shown to be unwarranted.

Is dependency on more sophisticated fire sprinkler systems the reason there is more acceptance for taller timber buildings? Obviously they are cheaper to build and methinks the results can be cheap if not with adequate soundproofing, etc.